


fireworks (that went off too soon)

by charmedtomeetyou



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, emo music appreciation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-10-20 20:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20681717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charmedtomeetyou/pseuds/charmedtomeetyou
Summary: Killian Jones and Emma Swan were somewhat inseparable in college, a little because they were so disgusted by all the lovey-dovey talk between Killian's roommate and Emma's, but a lot because they shared a love for emo music. Killian gets his big break, which is immediately followed by a break in their relationship. But his band's new hit song nine years later changes everything.AKA Killian is the lead singer of a band that isn't *technically* Fall Out Boy, but DOES happen to sing songs with identical lyrics...





	1. Emma

It was 3pm on Friday the 13th – _ also _ a Full Moon – when Emma Swan finally had the meltdown she’d pressed “pause” on about nine years earlier.

(Nine years, three months, more accurately, but who was counting?)

The work week was winding down. The _ get this done today or be fired _ tasks had been completed and all the emails had been answered and it was about time to start doing the bare minimum to run down the clock to 5:01 when she could, without regret, run screaming from the building and put her god forsaken job out of her mind for two days of rest, relaxation, and rum.

(Definitely the rum. Or maybe it had been upgraded to a tequila weekend.)

It was Pandora’s fault, really. (A fitting name for opening up an emotional box inside her soul that had been sealed for quite a long time and with _ very good fucking reason _.)

Usually Emma listened to wordless music – movie scores, Vitamin String Quartet and the like – so as to keep the creative juices flowing without breaking her train of concentration. But having reached the _ procrastination _ part of the afternoon, she thought, _ what harm could there be in listening to a little regular music _?

Emma had always had a soft spot for pop/punk/emo music. It brought her joy even when it wasn’t joyful, which is either a sentiment only shared by lonely foster girls or perhaps all emo kids, but did it matter? It was her kind of music. Long before she met Killian Jones.

But then she met him. He was an insufferable ass at least 2/3 of the time, but for the other third of his life, he was sweet, funny, and musically a goddamn genius. His voice was smooth and warm, he could play guitar like it was in his DNA, and his lyrics were both relatable and completely original. She was half in love from the start, so of course she pushed him as far away as possible. 

(_ Love is patient; love is kind. Love is slowly losing my mind _)

He was aloof. At best. They were college kids who shared a dorm building and not much else, not until their roommates fell in love with each other. That’s around the time they started spending an inordinate amount of time together. He was fucking anything with brown eyes and tits and she absolutely did not care and everything was fine. They were friends, kind of. She was a fan of his band, but not in the _ groupie _ way. She had no intention of being just a notch in his bedpost _ or _ a line in his song.

(As it turned out, she ended up becoming both. Eventually.)

When he wasn’t playing shows in dive bars (or fucking freshmen girls in a shower stall of their dorm hall’s shared bathroom), he spent a lot of time in Emma’s room. Mostly to avoid Mary Margaret and David in _ his _ room who were, as he called it, “the most sickly sweet love story this side of the Atlantic” and “a complete buzzkill to complex song-writing.” And she was OK with it. She loved when he would compose while she read. And they had the _ best _ conversations. They challenged each other on everything from politics to pie flavors and she’d never been so stimulated by someone of the opposite sex in her life.

Intellectually stimulated. In the brain.

By junior year, the two pairs of roommates had moved off-campus, opting to share a three bedroom house while they finished up school. Killian’s band was starting to actually make something of themselves, but he vowed to get his degree (_ this pretty face won’t last forever _), and Emma played tutor for him when he skipped class for weeks on end so he could play some gigs on the west coast.

They were friends. They were equals. They meant so much more to each other than “just” friends or study buddies or housemates or anything, because the past three years had been the most stable years in either of their lives and it was all because of the support they received from each other in the darkest nights and the brightest days and seriously. 

Fuck Pandora.

It had distracted her when she was in the middle of perfectly pleasant procrastinating. Now she was getting off track. Frazzled. Fucking _ pissed _.

With her work mostly finished, she had decided to listen to Panic! At the Disco’s station. It was a safe zone – the best of two different genres: emo and pop. She bopped along to Blink 182 and “the Ballad of Mona Lisa.” She swayed and swooned a little when “Secrets” by One Republic played. And she got a good laugh at “I’m Not OK (I Promise),” remembering the days she’d scream “I’m not o-fucking kay! [trust me]” every time she got into a fight with the foster mother she now loved so very much.

But then there was a dramatic twist and a cinematic sweep and _ that voice _ and before she could switch the station, some warning popped up at her, removing all the buttons and controls and displaying the error message of SOMETHING WENT WRONG and all she could think was _ no shit, Sherlock _.

Killian’s band got big when they were 21. And stayed big. The band broke up once, briefly, but they’d been dancing around the American Top 40 for at least 6 of the last 9 years and as much as it hurt her to hear his voice through a radio and not through a wall of their shared house, at least the lyrics of the songs never stung her before.

Because they’d never been about her before.

It was the summer before senior year, late that June, and Killian had just returned from a little pop-punk festival in Seattle. She’d picked him up at the airport in Portland (Maine) and had been chatting his ear off about how much better “our” Portland was from “theirs” (Oregon), but Killian had been largely silent. 

Which was out of character to the extreme, his little creative writing/song composer mind always racing and his far too pleasing voice always spilling from his stupidly attractive lips. 

“What is up with you, Jones? I just said that they have better lobster in Oregon and you didn’t even react.”

From the passenger seat, he played with the window controller, the air whooshing in and stopping to the rhythm of Seven Nation Army AKA the world’s most overplayed song that wasn’t sung by Ed Sheeran or Taylor Swift.

“Hmm? Oh, it’s nothing, Swan. A problem for a different day, to be sure.”

His voice had been quiet, unsure. That wasn’t him either. This was the asshole who could start a trend with a typo and who claimed to have made a girl come with nothing but his voice. His level of confidence was infuriating, but unshakeable. 

(He made forgetting the words to his own songs look attractive. And that was an eventual Buzzfeed headline, not Emma’s own assessment. Obviously.)

“Killian, what’s up? Did the festival not go as well as you wanted? From what I saw on YouTube, it seemed awfully successful.”

“Aye, love.” He perked up just a bit, finally turning toward her and smiling. “It was grand.”

“And you’re brooding because, what, you’re worried that feeling happy for too long will sap you of your emo energy or something?” 

Her attempt to lighten the mood didn’t seem to take, though, and Killian turned back out the window like he was practicing for his very own music video.

When they got back to their house, Emma grabbed his clothes and Killian lugged the musical equipment and neither of them said a word.

Fog had rolled in, or maybe it was on its way out, and if it weren’t for the green leaves, it might have felt like October. But there was something about his expression that was a hell of a lot more December. Something ending.

They were lingering almost awkwardly in their kitchen, Emma trying to casually wrack her brain for how to pull Killian out of his little funk, when he interrupted her with an overdramatic clearing of his throat.

“Ahem! Fancy a drink, Swan?” Killian extended a shot glass to her, a dark liquid inside that couldn’t be anything but spiced rum. 

“What’s the occasion?” she asked hesitantly.

“Perhaps… perhaps it’s a celebration.”

“…of?”

“Your business sense, of course!” He lifted his glass toward hers for a _ clink _ and then downed the shot faster than she could even raise hers to her lips.

“What kind of business are we talking here? I’m not sure if this is the setup for an idiot joke or a reference to lyrics you swear you told me you wrote but never actually did.”

“Ah, love, no. Not that, this time anyway. Actually – actually, it’s about the band. And ‘Grand Theft Autumn.’ The loved it like you said they would.”

“They being?”

“The record company. They loved it. And they want it. And us.”

_ Holy shit! _She knew it. They were going to be famous. Killian deserved it so much and they were going to be huge and everyone was going to love him just like she did and – 

Wait.

“When you say they want you… do you mean, like, deferred acceptance so you can finish college or…”

“No, love. The boys and I … we’re packing up and moving to LA.”

She was dumbfounded.

“LA?”

“Aye.”

“When?”

“Monday.”

That’s right about the time her stomach dropped to her heels and the rum threatened its way back up her throat and perhaps onto Killian’s perfectly rumpled white shirt.

She just – wasn’t ready to let him go.

She could hear his honey-smooth voice drift through her head, his own lyrics seeming oddly relevant to this dramatic turn in her life.

_ Maybe he won’t find out what I know; you were the last good thing about this part of town _.

So they drank. And drank. And drank some more. They were more honest with each other than they’d been in three years. She told him how much she hated that he thought setting his clocks early would keep him from being late. And he told her that he didn’t truly think that… it just had fit as a song lyrics and he felt like he needed to “make it authentic by living it.”

She called him pretentious and he called her painfully adorable and neither were true and yet somehow they felt like the perfect identifiers for the characters they were trying to be when they weren’t with each other.

So of course she fell into bed with him that night. Her bed. The twinkly lights hung around her ceiling were flickering as he kissed a trail down her neck and she tugged off his way-too-tight jeans and dear fucking lord if she thought the only thing he could do with his tongue was sing, she was officially wrong.

But come morning she was officially _ gone _. As the sun rose on a rainy June Sunday morning, she slipped out of her bed, slid into whatever clothes she could reach without making noise, and jogged all the way to David’s brother’s frat house to hide until Monday came and went and when exactly did her life turn into an emo song?

_ When I wake up I’m willing to take my chances on the hope I forget _

September. Friday the 13th. Pandora malfunction. Her brain was reeling and her heart was shattering all over again, because the song pumping through her pathetic tinny Dell speakers was, on first blush, just another of his melodramatic fictions, a series of sentiments that sounded good together but that he’d never actually experienced (he’d admitted the best songs were much like _ Hey There Delilah _… a lovely story and 0% real). But she could hear something genuine in that still so attractive voice. And then… a few familiar thoughts.

_ I’ll be as honest as you let me _

_ I miss your early morning company _

_ If you get me _

_ You are my favorite ‘what if’ _

_ You are my best ‘I’ll never know’ _

She’d turned off her phone the morning she’d left him in her bed. Kept it off until Tuesday. And blocked his number the minute she turned it back on.

Goodbyes were bad enough. To have been reduced to his very last college-one-night-stand? She couldn’t face it. 

(Especially because she’d realized mid-fuck she’d kind of always wanted to be his forever, or whatever overly-romantic hyperbole he’d scoff at before writing it down in his notes.)

She hadn’t let herself think of him for longer than the span of one of his songs since that day. Even then, she’d usually change the channel. It was just too hard.

But could this one actually be about her? And if so, what the fuck was she supposed to do with that? Cry? Scream? Sue his sorry ass for slander?

(Not that one.)

She’d made a lot of mistakes in her life. He’d never been one of them, not until the end. Is it possible that didn’t need to be the end at all?

_ My 9 to 5 is cutting open old scars _

_ Again and again til I’m stuck in your head _

He’d probably had a lot of almosts. Maybe he’d just gotten better at faking genuine emotion in his songs. There’s no way he still thought about her. Even for lyrical dramatics.

_ I wish I’d known how much you loved me _

_ I wish I’d cared enough to know _

_ I’m sorry every song’s about you _

_ The torture of small talk _

_ With someone you used to love _

Well there you had it. Small talk? They hadn’t talked in years. And she already knew every song was total bullshit, made up longing. Some of his best lovelorn pandering (that she admittedly loved) had been written when he claimed to be incapable of actual love. When he would only sleep with dark-haired, dark-eyed girls who didn’t want anything more than a good breakfast the next morning.

(_ I’m not looking for a soulmate, darling, just a beauty without a gag reflex _ , he’d repeated on many occasions. Sometimes literally _ to the women he was hitting on _. And yes, they did usually blow him afterward and he would inexplicably tell her and she Did. Not. Care.)

(Until the day she realized she always had.)

A week after he’d moved to Los Angeles had been the 4th of July. It being summer and most of her friends working various jobs, she didn’t think there would be a huge party. James had insisted, though, that they needed to celebrate the fact that their friends were getting famous. David had pointed out the irony that the band – Killian, Will, Robin, and Graham – were all from outside of the USA. And yet they were being celebrated on America’s birthday.

“Stealing things from others is the American way. Now drink, little brother!” James had shouted just before his frat brothers lifted him into keg stand position and he chugged.

Emma wasn’t one for keg stands, so she’d opted for _ drinking straight liquor _ instead, and from what she could extrapolate from the massive headache the next morning (in addition to the vomit in her bedside garbage can), she had likely drank that bottle in its entirety.

After the opening of Pandora’s box that fateful Friday the 13th, Emma couldn’t think of much else but her almost-maybe-something Killian Jones. Suddenly his stupid band was everywhere and that stupid song was everywhere and she was feeling a deep longing to connect with that girl who had two whole albums by two different bands written about her to see how the fuck she coped with old wounds being opened every fucking visit to the grocery store.

(Then again, Brand New and Taking Back Sunday weren’t quite so mainstream. Maybe that’s how she survived.)

(_ Is that what you call a getaway? Tell me what you got away with, cause I’ve seen more spine in jellyfish; I’ve seen more guts in 11 year old kids _.)

She’d taken to keeping the radio off at all times, and humming the Star Spangled Banner when she couldn’t escape Killian’s stupidly attractive and all-too-familiar voice gracing the airwaves.

Ruby asked her out for drinks, and alcohol was exactly the cure for her current tumult, so she agreed on the very specific request that they hit the country bar downtown instead of their usual Rabbit Hole escapades. Which worked out great for avoiding song-specific reminders, but sadly didn’t keep all Killian talk at bay.

“By the way, how have you been holding up?” Ruby asked, probably in response to Emma’s downing two shots – one of which that had been intended for Ruby – in the first minute or so at the table.

“What do you mean, holding up?” She wasn’t _ that _transparent, right?

“Well the song… the one Killian wrote about you. It’s, like… huge. Weird how he waited this long. Did he warn you first or anything?”

… _ what? _ It wasn’t about her. Sure, it kind of, a little bit, had some moments that _ seemed _ like they could be inspired by her. But it had been nine fucking years and she hadn’t seen him since the morning she slinked away from their house and it’s not like he’d ever reached out or anything (or at least he didn’t try very hard, because blocking a cell phone number wasn’t like blocking a whole-ass person), hence her nine years of denial and shoving down her feelings like the very opposite of the emo kid she once was.

She probably looked like that stupid meme of the lady thinking about math and her heart was beating nearly out of her chest, but somehow the only sound that made it out of her mouth was, “huh?”

Ruby, bless her heart, was much better at dealing with, you know, _ life _ than Emma was. And sorting through feelings and coping with unprecedented situations that Emma had so far only seen odd iterations of in Hallmark movies or … emo music videos, probably.

“The song. Fourth of July. It’s been a while since he wrote a song about you and I mean usually they were about pining for you, which is a little more tolerable, probably. But this one… I don’t know. I just figured you probably didn’t appreciate it, and that’s why you were drinking _ my _ shots.”

Another lame, dumbfounded response: “What? Killian’s never written a song about me.”

Ruby’s eyebrow shot up to her hairline (the way Killian’s always had when she said something silly). “So all that shit in college was…?”

“Made up! Ruby, he was a creative writing major. He just made up characters and then wrote songs as if he were them. He never actually wanted to date anyone. Just fuck anything that resembled Megan Fox.”

Ruby didn’t say a word. She stood, walked to the bar, ordered two drinks, and sat back down with Emma a few minutes later.

“Sweetheart. You sure are dumb for a smart girl.”

And that’s how _ Emma’s Enlightenment _ began.

As it turns out, Killian’s creative writing skills were great, but not quite as great as his love for his best friend.

Yep, love. Apparently he’d loved her.

There was a reason he’d really only fucked girls that looked nothing like Emma.

There was a reason he had valued her input so much in his music.

There was a reason he’d hung out with her so often and it had nothing to do with Mary Margaret and David’s grossness.

_ Keep quiet; nothing comes as easy as you. Can I lay in your bed all day? _

Fuck.

“Why didn’t he tell me?!”

Ruby laughed at her, which was totally uncalled for, but also kind of made a lot of sense if she had the ability to think of any of this objectively.

“Oh, honey. He told you every goddamn day in those songs. And how he acted. You’d have to be blind to not realize how much that boy loved you. So he assumed it was a ‘no’ from your side. And then after you slept with him and then he poured his heart out to you and still nothing? That was kinda it for him. But I mean, it’s been so long. I can’t believe he released a song about that _ now _.”

At that, Emma’s jaw dropped. Hard. There was an audible pop and damnit, she was going to have to ice that later, probably.

“How do you know I slept with him?!”

“… because you had a fight about it literally in front of every person you knew?”

HUH?

The buzz of the alcohol was nothing compared to the stinging behind her eyes and the pain in her gut and seriously had the past decade actually been a very different reality from what she’d been living? 

And how had Mary Margaret, AKA the Secret Spiller, never told her that A) Killian loved her or B) that Emma had apparently had a blacked-out fight with him in front of everyone?

Emma’s Enlightment continued.

Apparently no one spilled the secret because no one knew it was a secret to start. Much like Killian had, _ everyone _ thought that Emma knew his feelings, but that she just wanted to be friends.

And after the blow up on the Fourth of July, they just assumed she didn’t want to talk about it.

While David and James and a bunch of their friends were playing beer pong and Mary Margaret and Regina were trying to find another pair to play cornhole, Emma had been nursing a bottle of Jack Daniels from the roof of the frat house. She’d crawled out of Jefferson’s window, much to his annoyance (he worked in the morning and needed to sleep), and she just watched. Everyone was having a good time. The best days of their lives were now or even tomorrow.

But hers were yesterday.

So she drank and she drank and she drank until the boys were lighting off fireworks and Belle had started a chant of USA! USA! And out of nowhere she saw the floppy brown hair and scuffed-up leather jacket she’d been wishing for every minute of the last week.

“Swan! I need to speak with you!” he’d called up at her, perched on the Lion statue at the front entrance.

But, of course, he’d been pulled in a thousand different directions as soon as everyone else saw their about-to-be-famous friend. So Emma drank and drank and drank some more, not prepared to actually have to _ say _ goodbye this time.

Ruby wasn’t sure how long it took until Killian made it onto the roof with her. She did know they’d only been talking a few minutes when Emma started screaming at the top of her lungs about _ thanks for the memories, even though they weren’t so great _ . That seemed to have really upset him, because then he started screaming about _ why the bloody hell did you sleep with me then _ and Emma had cried but ultimately said she didn’t mean to and he needed to just leave because that’s what he was going to do anyway and there was no reason to feel sorry for her.

There had been more screaming that wasn’t quite intelligible (_ thank goodness _ ), but when all was said and done, Killian had told Ruby that he laid it all down on the line, how much he loved her, how he wanted her to go with him to LA, how he really would burn down the whole city just to show her the light, but she’d said no. _ Emphatically _. 

Before crying so hard in Jefferson’s closet that he threatened to take her to the ER. When Emma passed out, Killian had carried her to his car (the only sober one) and carried her into her room when they got to his now-former house, leaving her with a kiss on the cheek and his later assurance to Ruby that at least he had tried.

And Emma didn’t remember.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Emma muttered to Ruby.

Was there anything worse than finding out something that could have changed your life _ nine fucking years _ too late? She had never loved anyone like she’d loved Killian. It had been the easiest relationship of her existence. She’d never felt more safe, more valued, more… loved. But she’d thought it was friend-love. 

(Even after the amazing sex.)

What a fucking dumbass she was.

Ruby left her to gather her thoughts/sulk in the corner for at least three line dances before she came back over to their table, bringing Emma a nice tall _ water _ as she cleared the un-drunk Long Island Iced Tea from next to Emma’s slumped head.

“I don’t think I can ever un-fuck this up,” Emma whined into her elbow before sitting up to chug the glass of water.

“I do have his number,” Ruby offered.

<strike>Hey um Ruby gave me your number and apparently I have a lot to apologize for</strike>

<strike>Congratulations on the fame also by the way I loved you every minute of every day</strike>

<strike>This is Emma, remember me? Apparently your song about me is doing really well</strike>

<strike>Hey Killian, I was wondering if you ever made it to this side of the country any more</strike>

<strike>I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry</strike>

After about 15 failed attempts to send him a message that would convey the depth of her regret, she nearly gave up. Hands shaking, legs bouncing, lunch threatening to make an encore appearance, she pulled up the lyrics to his new song, took a screenshot, 

> And all my thoughts of you
> 
> They could heat or cool the room
> 
> And now don’t tell me you’re fine
> 
> Oh, honey, you don’t have to lie

And added:

_ I’m not fine. _

It was a very painful 26 hours before she received a response, a screenshot with an addition as well.

> I said I’d never miss you, but I guess you’ll never know
> 
> Where the bridges I have burned never really led home

_ Can I come home? _

They met outside the old frat house (now shut down) a week later, staying awake until sunrise just catching up on all that had happened since they last saw each other (and a little bit of what happened when they did). She brought sparklers and he brought nine years of unreleased song lyrics.

And when his band’s next single was called _ Opening Pandora’s Box on Friday the Thirteenth _, well, everyone but Emma just thought they were being their usual melodramatic selves.

Yeah, songs about her weren’t all that awful after all.

  



	2. Killian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so more people liked the first chapter than I thought! YAY! So here's Killian's POV to fill in some blanks.
> 
> Thanks again to @caitlinrose923 for beta skills!

Never in his fucking life had Killian cried on stage. He rarely ever cried, opting instead to drink until he couldn’t stand. Or remember. So, really, it’s possible he cried and simply didn’t remember it.

Good.

But this night, 8 years after the last time tears fell from his eyes in a capacity that he remembered, he was bawling his bloody eyes out. On stage. After singing an Oasis cover.

_ Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me _

How goddamn cliché.

He hasn’t seen Emma in 8 years. Eight years since the best night of his life (and the best sex of his life), followed by the worst he’s ever felt and eight years of silence. Eight years without so much as a minute of small talk or a wave in passing on a busy city street, and the woman can still reduce him to teardrops on his guitar (maybe he should have covered Taylor Swift instead…)

Will noticed the crying and quickly ended the song. Graham tried to comfort him by bringing a gaggle of willing lasses backstage after the show. As usual, _ father figure _ Robin begged him to just call her or something.

Instead he just drank.

He hadn’t seen Emma Swan in eight years, and yet she was the reason for the ending of his last three relationships, the beginning of at least four weekend-long benders when the Independence Day celebrations began, and six different therapists across six different states who all gave advice he was never going to follow. _ Get closure _.

Fuck closure. It wasn’t _ him _ who wanted it to end. Hell, they hadn’t even begun when she’d rejected him. He’d never wanted to not be with her. From almost the first time he laid eyes on her, he was a goner. He didn’t want anyone but her, but she clearly didn’t feel the same. And… well, a boy’s gotta eat. So he drowned his sorrows between the thighs of any and every girl who was willing and who looked nothing like the girl he really wanted. 

(He knew with absolute certainty he’d never be able to run his hands through long, blonde hair without imagining it was Emma, which was wrong on so many levels, both for Emma and the girl he would have essentially been using as a stand-in.)

It’s been so long her hair might not even be long anymore. Or blonde. It could be red or brown or pixie cut. He’d never know because he never once, no matter how drunk, has given into temptation to Google her. 

Nor has he given into the temptation to fuck someone who looks just enough like her that he could just pretend for a few hours that she didn’t completely break his heart in a thousand pieces after he stupidly resorted to honesty for a once-in-a-lifetime moment of _ not _ faking it.

He’s been faking it ever since.

Not _ everything _, of course. He loves his fans and his band and Mexican food and the Northern Lights. He’s had some of the most amazing experiences in the last 8 years.

But every time he’s reminded that _ she _ wasn’t there it all gets… blue. And then blurry. And then blacked the fuck out.

How can you love someone you don’t even know anymore?

The Monday after the Wonderwall-Whiskey meltdown, Killian was due in the studio. Of course. He couldn’t catch a fucking break.

(More like he’d been procrastinating on writing new music and the contract dates were very specific and he had sort of painted himself into a very dark corner with his record label.)

They were going to need to record _ something _ and he was fresh out of hyperboles and metaphors and semi-trashy egotistical rants.

_ You’re a cherry blossom _

_ You’re about to bloom _

_ You look so pretty _

_ But you’re gone so soon _

Robin burst into Killian’s apartment while Killian, still hungover, was bent over a notepad, clutching at his head and willing the word vomit to expel itself before the remnants of last night stained the yellow paper.

_ He could write a song about a hangover, couldn’t he? Or about your best mate being mad at you for being the world’s most successful absolute fuck-up? _

“Any strokes of pure genius, Jones, or are we going to have to end up recording some shit Graham wrote about his giant wolf-dog?” Robin demanded, thrusting a coffee into Killian’s face.

“They’re good dogs, Brent,” Killian muttered, wondering if the We Rate Dogs kid might do a partnership with them if they wrote a song about dogs. _ Cute dogs can distract from shitty music, right? _

“If this were three months ago, I might laugh. But we need some new music, mate. And there are some pretty serious consequences if we don’t make something _ quality _. And I don’t just mean from YouTube comments.”

“Yes, _ dad _, I’m aware. I think the well has run dry, my friend.” Killian raked his hands through his shaggy, greasy hair. It really was a miracle he’d been so genetically blessed because girls wouldn’t be fawning over him for his hygiene, that was for sure.

“Oh, so we’re just going to pretend you didn’t have an emotional breakdown _ last night _? Those are usually pretty good for inspiration, wouldn’t you say?” Robin tapped his foot and crossed his arms like a goddamn cartoon character, but Killian couldn’t bring himself to laugh. Any conversation but this one would be preferable.

“You know damn well I don’t have any more words about that girl.”

“Ah, so we _ are _ talking Emma here, then?”

Killian gritted his teeth and nearly broke the pen he was holding in his frustration to hear her name out loud. “Who the fuck else would it be?”

“Tink dumped you pretty hard a couple months ago. Thought maybe that caught up with you.”

Robin kept staring at him like a disapproving dad, but that didn’t stop him from shoving his chair back and stomping over to the mini-fridge, popping the cap on some rum and dumping it in the freshly brewed coffee from Robin that he’d yet to touch.

“And why was it again that Tink dumped me, Robin?” he asked, the physical burn of the coffee on his tongue outweighing the burn of the alcohol down his throat.

“Because she got hair extensions and you lost your mind.”

“Doesn’t make for a great song, I wouldn’t say.”

“Hey, it could. Weirder things have happened. We did write a song with Nikki Sixx last year.”

“Aye.”

The silence stretched far longer than was comfortable. But how exactly are you supposed to admit you can no longer do the thing you were famous for? Killian was exhausted. He was at his breaking point with himself and his own stupidity and inability to let go. He’d written songs upon songs about pining and loss and fucking without a care in the world and … he just didn’t have anything left. Loquacious as he was, he’d finally run out of words.

_ I took a shot and didn’t even come close _

_ At trust and love and hope _

_ And the poets are just kids who didn’t make it _

_ And never had it all _

Robin finally spoke, picking up the notepad and tossing it directly at Killian’s face: “It’s time to talk about the thing you don’t want to talk about.”

“Global warming or the inevitability that this beautiful head of hair will eventually turn gray?” He quirked his usual confident smile, but it felt half-assed even to him.

“Killian. We got famous on songs you write about Emma. And some that just sounded like a good story, sure. But the big ones, those were Emma. And then we stayed famous because pain in the ass as you are, you’ve got a way with words. And an imagination I would kill for.”

“Believe me, I put it to better use than our songs,” Killian murmured salaciously.

“Are you flirting with an invisible groupie or have you finally decided to switch teams, there, Jones?”

“You wish.”

“Stop trying to distract me with ridiculousness, you prat. You’re miserable these days, and usually I’d say you need a distraction, but we simply don’t have time for that. So we’re going to have to resort to Classic Killian and make money off your pain, kay?”

Killian actually paused. Took the request seriously. His therapists had been begging him for years to get closure. They said closure came in different forms, but for a songwriter, it should have been simple. Write her out of his system.

Even eight years later, he didn’t _ want _ her out of his system. He still only wanted _ her _ . But she was probably married and carrying her third child by now or curing cancer or god knows what. Anything but wasting her life being hung up on _ him _.

Perhaps it was time.

She’d picked him up from the airport, as she often did, and her green eyes were sparkling despite the late hour. Her long curls were smashed down from a long day working and from the car’s headrest, but it was still like her hair was her fiery personality come to life. She was gorgeous, objectively speaking, but you couldn’t possibly know the extent of how beautiful she was until you’d seen her solve a math problem at 3am and celebrate with an All-American Rejects dance party and chocolate chip muffin. Or when she screamed at a bunch of football players for moo-ing at a chubby girl at the salad bar. Or, most of all, when she smiled and swayed along to the songs he wrote about how devastatingly in love with her he was – even though she didn’t return the feeling.

They were friends, of course. _ Best _ friends. So she loved him, in a sense. 

But not like he loved her. _ She _didn’t spend the entire flight imagining a future where they shared a little cottage on the outskirts of LA, near the ocean of course, where they spent all night worshipping each other’s bodies and then all morning braiding their daughter’s hair and skipping rocks at the beach.

No, that was his fantasy and his alone.

And it was perhaps about to officially become not even a little bit possible. Because he was leaving.

His big break, well it had happened. And he was moving. Now. Not after college, not when she maybe might be ready to reassess _ them _ or even just tag along as a roommate (any Emma is better than no Emma). It was now and he was running out of time to charm the pants off her, metaphorically speaking, and it was making him downright sad on a day he had always expected he’d do nothing but celebrate.

She called him out on it. As of course she would. She didn’t accept things when they seemed off. She _ knew _ when he was lying or hiding something. She knew _ him _.

Could anyone blame him for wanting a few more minutes of the present before the future swallowed him whole?

_ I’m still comparing your past to my future _

_ It might be your wound but they’re my sutures _

It turned out, of course, that telling her was the best thing, for a while at least. After they toasted, after they retired to her room, laughing and smiling and teasing each other about everything they’ve never quite said out loud before. 

It was somewhere around the time she finally admitted she didn’t like Green Day and he confessed that he could do without Brand New that she kissed him. It was just a little thing, the kind of kiss you give someone you’ve been kissing for a hundred years already. Automatic. None of the unresolved sexual tension he always assumed there’d be in a first kiss with Emma Swan.

For a second, it seemed she didn’t even realize what she’d done. She leaned back and took another sip, smiling just as she had been before she’d pressed her lips so casually to his.

Then she realized what she’d done. And, to _ both _ of their surprise, it seemed, burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny, love, get a tickle of my scruff?”

“Ha! Got a tickle of _ something _.”

He’d panicked then, thinking his attraction to her might have been showing in, shall we say, hard evidence. But he looked down and his modesty was well intact. 

“What do you mean, love?”

“I forgot for a second! That I wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“To do what?” He was still lost.

“To kiss you. That’s not… a thing. That we do, anyway. But I felt good and I was happy and I forgot.”

“Why? I mean to say… why is it a thing we don’t do?”

“Because friends don’t kiss. _ Joke me something awful just like kisses on the necks of best friends _, remember? Your words.”

“You argue with my words all the time. Why wouldn’t you argue that one if you didn’t like it.”

“Fine, then. I like _ you _. You are my best friend, though. But I still want to kiss you and … well I know I just burst out laughing, but it’s a thing I do. It was most definitely not because it was a joke.”

“So, you’re saying you want to kiss me again?” He wasn’t responsible for the current angle of his eyebrows. 

She shrunk back at that, though, almost curling into the corner of her bed, seemingly ashamed. “Are you making fun of me?”

The triumph and joy he was feeling inside clearly must not have been translated to his face very well, because she seemed genuinely concerned that he didn’t just hear the most beautiful sentence that had ever been spoken in all of history.

“No, love. Never. I mean, unless you’re planning on wearing that _ Kill All Your Friends _ shirt with the bloody sheep again. Then I can’t be responsible for the mocking that comes out of my…”

Before he could actually finish that sentence she crawled into his lap, knees on either side of his hips, and pressed her lips to his once again.

_ Fucking magic _, it was.

Every single second of the next hour was the best of his life, from seeing her bare in front of him to hearing her little moans to feeling himself inside her to the absolute contentment of falling asleep by her side, naught between them but a lock of her hair at her neck.

Of course she took off before dawn. Only Emma fucking Swan would run away from her own house to avoid feelings. He wasn’t surprised, not at first. Maybe she just needed a few breaths. Maybe she just needed Mary Margaret to squeal at the development and remind her that they both very much loved Killian Jones and maybe, just maybe, he was worth more than just a best friend. 

But she never came back. Turned her phone off. 

And then rejected him on the Fourth of July when he tried to tell her that nothing in the world, not fame or fortune or Fallout, the band itself, could ever hold a candle to her importance in his life. 

Sure, she was pretty drunk. But drunk people were _ honest _. And she’d called that night, his favorite night, a mistake. So he got her home safely. He’d even given her one last kiss goodbye. But come morning she’d blocked his number and even a month later she hadn’t so much as mentioned his name – he’d checked with Ruby and David almost daily – so he locked away those last few days with Emma Swan in a safe not even a whole box of dynamite could penetrate.

But apparently a record label deadline and the unofficial Fallout Dad in the form of Robin could. 

“Aye, mate. It’s time.”

He drank about a gallon more coffee – no rum this time – and cried no fewer than five more times that afternoon. But by sunset he’d written a song, a whole _ real _ song with emotion and truth and, as Robin had so kindly pointed out earlier that day, all of Killian’s _ pain _.

The band loved it. The record label did, too. They recorded it Monday and it sounded even better in the studio than it had in his head. Graham remarked it should be in a movie and of course their agent got her gears going on that, but all he could think was that someday, someplace, Emma Swan was probably going to hear one more song all about her.

He briefly thought about warning her. Via Ruby, obviously, he wasn’t nuts. But maybe it would be the kind thing to do?

But if she still thought of him, she’d have reached out. She’d made her feelings and her choice perfectly clear. He wasn’t going to assume he meant anything to her. Truly his love was always unrequited; it was just that glorious hour one foggy June night that made him believe it was even possible she might see him the same way he saw her.

She wouldn’t even notice.

_ So progress report: I am missing you to death _

The song hit #1 in August. Now more than nine years since he’d last seen her. And singing it never got easier. That first day in the studio, he was riding some kind of catharsis high. It had felt good. But then it only got _ hard _. He’d pushed her to the back of his mind most times, had sung their old classics enough times that he didn’t explicitly see her face every fucking verse. But this one? It was new on his soul and he couldn’t take it. He’d started popping Xanax before that song after the first meltdown (the second time he’d cried about her on stage) (the night Will had taken over vocals for the rest of the show). 

Tonight’s concert he’d popped three Xanax and was seriously in danger of falling asleep at the mic. But at least he didn’t _ feel _ it the way his heart wanted him to.

_ You are my favorite ‘what if’ _

_ You are my best ‘I’ll never know’ _

(And how he wished it was true that he didn’t mean any of it. Fuck, he’d meant it all.)

He received a text from an unknown number and almost didn’t open it. They were almost always wrong numbers (and, no, he never let anyone know they’d accidentally sent a dick pic to the singer of the country’s most famous alt rock band).

But he was curious and sad and tired and he opened it and realized very quickly that it could only be from one person on this whole planet, the one person who’d been holding his heart in her palms for the last twelve fucking years.

(_ For twelve years I’ve held it all together but a night like this is begging to pull me apart _… maybe Brand New wasn’t so bad after all.)

  


She’d repeated his own words to him, which was a turn-on it itself (always had been with her and only her):

> And all my thoughts of you
> 
> They could heat or cool the room
> 
> And now don’t tell me you’re fine
> 
> Oh, honey, you don’t have to lie

And then she added, “I’m not fine.”

Bloody hell. Did she mean what it seemed she did? Had the past nine years of suffering been for nothing? Had his very most emo thoughts (that never turned him a profit until this past year) been wholly unnecessary?

Or was she simply indicating she wasn’t fine with being featured in a hit song on the radio with her express permission?

But there was one thing Killian knew was still true of Emma Swan: she wasn’t cruel. There’s no way she’d be using his words to taunt him, even if she was a little cranky that he’d sung about her without warning her first. No, it was far, far more likely this was Emma’s roundabout way of sharing her feelings without _ really _ sharing much original content.

She _ had _ been the one to kiss him. But it had required an awful lot of reassuring her first that he was on the same page. And as he knew, lyrics could be interpreted all kinds of ways. She could have been protecting herself.

But what the bloody hell do you say to someone when the only possible scenario for how you two got to the predicament you’re in was that you’ve both had your heads up your own arses for upwards of a decade?

His knee-jerk response would have been to say I HAVEN’T BEEN FINE IN NINE GODDAMN YEARS, but some might construe that as… angry.

And while there was a part of him that was angry, the other part of him was just _ relieved _. He’d never wanted to let her go to begin with. He’d avoided this very song and all thought processes that might lead to it so he could keep everything inside and privately hold on to hope that he might find his way back to her one day.

But surprise! His exercise in letting go seemed to have brought her back.

_ I’m all right in bed, but I’m better with a pen _

He stared at his phone almost the entire day. And night. He drafted song lyrics. He defeated some teenagers on Xbox Live. He went through every old picture of her he could find and tried to imagine the musical sound of her laughter when he told a ridiculous joke.

He needed to respond, but a text message had far too much room for misinterpretation. Tracking her down in person could be disastrous because she never reacted well to stressful surprises. 

Fuck. He should have been better at this. How many girls had he communicated near-exclusively via text message?

None that he’d been in love with, that was for sure.

He’d always let her set the tone of their friendship back in college. So after over 25 hours of agonizing over a blank message screen, he finally made his decision, opting for returning Emma’s style. Quoting himself and adding: “Can I come home?”

(She’d always been his home more than any singular place on this Earth.)

(She was his everything.)

(He needed to hit send or she wasn’t going to be anything but pissed at him for leaving her hanging.)

His phone buzzed no more than a minute later, that long buzzing that usually meant a telemarketer, distant relative, or angry label record exec. 

But it wasn’t.

It was Emma.

“Uh, hello?”

“I fucking hate texting,” is all she said. Like the last time they’d spoken was yesterday in the coffee shop while finishing their midterm papers.

This woman was a miracle.

After clearing up all the truly ridiculous misunderstandings and complications and fears that had led to the misapprehension on Emma’s part that he didn’t actually have feelings for her, had just slept with her because “why not?” (her words) or some kind of last hurrah before ghosting her forever… well then they finally got to the good stuff. The meeting in person and recelebrating the Fourth of July stuff. The catching up on everything they’ve done without one another and everything they’d like to now do _ together _ kind of stuff.

And oh, good _ lord _ the naked stuff. For all the bravado in his stupid songs, he’d never felt _ anything _ like the absolute bliss of spilling himself inside Emma Swan while she was moaning his name, not a drop of alcohol on their breath and not a single hesitation that they both wanted _ this _, each other, in every sense of the word.

When they awoke hours later, he knew long before he opened his eyes that this time, she had _ stayed _.

She leaned over him, her breasts pressing against his back as he smiled into his pillow, her long blonde hair tickling his nose when she kissed the back of his head.

“You awake there, tiger?”

“You wore me out, woman, I need my rest.”

She chuckled and lay her head down on his shoulder blade, tapping at his cheek.

“Yes, love?”

“I don’t know where you’re going, but do you got room for one more troubled soul?” she asked quietly, half-embarrassed.

He rolled her over, kissed every inch of her face, and responded simply: “anything for you, my darling.”

One thing was for sure: his next album was going to write itself. And it would likely be nearly devoid of _ pain _.

  
_I said I'd never miss you_

  
_But I guess you never know _

  
_May the bridges I have burned _

  
_Light my way back home on the fourth of July_


End file.
